"What/who keeps it from being that way? Seems like CIF would encourage, if not require, it... it is a mystery!"

No mystery at all. When the state meet began, the division splits were the same across all sections. But as the school size distribution shifted, the sections requested the ability to adjust the enrollment cutoffs in order to have more equitable section-level competition.

For example, using "universal" enrollment cut-offs, there may be only a handful of D1 schools in NCS and CCS. If there are only 3 or 4 schools in that division, do 2 still automatically qualify for the state meet?

I would also propose to add an Open Division for the top 20 teams in State. Teams may "opt out" if they so choose. The top two teams from THIS DIVISION ONLY at the state meet can be selected for NXN and at-large bids. Section meets are run the same as they are now. Following a combined scoring for all divisions each section qualifies their top 2 teams, additional spots based on population of section (so SS would get more if they want them). If a team accepts the open division invitation the next place team from that section advances to the division races in their place.

We always talk about the best racing the best. This is how we can do it... Something to think about.

Whitney High CBEDS for last year put us at 1777(two shy of division 3), so we were a small D2 school in our own section and very small compared to SS schools. The link below is to the football enrollments, which of course are the same for Cross.

Good food for thought... I remember back in 2004 when we had a decent boys squad and we found out coming into the year that we were D2... I didn't think much of it until I saw the enrollment figures of some of the teams we faced at state later on... I was blown away that in a divisional state meet the sections had so many different ranges for their own divisions... there is a good argument to allow sections to do that but I think that at the state level divisions should be state-wide... Crowning divisional state champions is a big deal and to do so with varied enrollment figures seems quite silly... Let the SS dominate division 1 and allow other sections to let their top teams compete at a high level based on their actual school size... Quickly glancing at the listing I see Carlmont as a possible contender for a state championship if they lined-up by school size, instead they barely crack the top 10 in D1... I wouldn't mind seeing a change... Coach IbarraNMC

Anybody know how to find the 20th, 40th, 60th, and 80th percentiles for CBED's for the entire state of CA? A virtual meet based on ranges of those percentiles would be more appropriate then just using Southern Section enrollments, which is why the D3 and D4 ranges look so messed up because Southern Section doesn't have a lot of schools in those ranges.

If you are going to do this right you need to make the divisions equal... So the 23 highest enrollments are D1, next 23 are D2, etc. Essentially what you are doing is lumping the majority of schools into D3 and D4 which would never happen. The State would seek for equal number of schools for each division.

One possibility. Hold the section meets with respective CBEDS to make equal competition across the section. After the section qualifiers have been selected at the section meet, realign the divisions with the CBEDS. So as I mentioned above the 23 highest CBEDS are D1, etc.

Putting Carlmont, a school with 2000+, in D3 with schools with 1250 like Monterey is hardly the solution here and would be a disaster on the section level.

They are a D1 school in our section. However the realignment by CBED after section qualifiers are determined would be more fair.

SS should not dictate the Divisions. As they have more big schools, Nor Cal has smaller ones. All this would do is create a Nor Cal / So Cal division. We can do that by adding another meet called NOR CAL because it wouldn't be a true "State" championship anyways.

A solution would be to take every single high school in CA and simply divide them into 5 equal parts... give every section those divisional figures and at the state meet that is what division you run... each section can run their section meet as they wish but they'd have to find a qualification method to send their teams to state based on the state figures... It can be the best of both worlds, it just needs to be across the board at the state level if it is to be a true and fair divisional state meet...Coach IbarraNMC

Not true... Then you might have as in this example 10 teams in D1 and 40 in D3. This doesn't work either.

The example of "reseeding" by CBed is what currently happens for football, soccer and many other sports. No reason it can't happen here. I am also for an open division for the best to race the best. Of course the other end is to make no divisions and have one state meet like in track. State Divisions by enrollment is not the answer. Too many schools in the middle. Or since XC is individual due away with teams all together and just focus on the individuals.

The sections release their own CBEDs at different times. The CCS CBEDs have already been established and will be posted on their website in the near future. NCS will have their post season meeting on December 12th and those will be released then. The other sections usually release theirs during the summer.